1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to an electronic device and a power management method thereof, and more particularly, to an electronic device with a multi-core processor and a power management method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, various portable electronic devices, such as smart phones and tablet computers, have been widely spread and become one of the most indispensable parts of our daily life. Such an electronic device provides diversified functions. Accordingly, along with the explosive growth in the amount of data to be processed, a conventional electronic device with a single-core processor cannot provide a satisfactory execution performance.
In order to improve the execution performance and operational capability, electronic devices with multi-core processors are developed. The average power consumption and the temperature curve of a multi-core processor are very different from those of a single-core processor. Thereby, how to control the temperature and reduce the power consumption while, at the same time, improving the execution performance and operational capability of the processor is the key to competitiveness improvement of electronic products.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the enabled core number of a conventional electronic device with a multi-core processor. Referring to FIG. 1, originally, four processor cores of the conventional electronic device are running, and the number of running processor cores is adjusted at intervals of 500 ms. Because the temperature T of the multi-core processor is greater than the tolerable temperature Ttole of the electronic device (i.e., T>Ttole) at 500 ms, the electronic device adjusts the number of running processor cores to 2 so as to reduce the element temperature or surface temperature of the multi-core processor. However, if a user is playing a highly dynamic electronic game by using the electronic device, the sudden drop in the number of running processor cores will surely affect the system performance and cause the presentation of the electronic game to lose its smoothness. Accordingly, discomfort will be experienced by the user.